3.
The book was left on a table in her room. There'd been no need to wait, her mother couldn't know the feeling, the push and pull, the unending pressure. It had to stop. If she could make it stop, she would.
Aphiwe groaned, it was like her soul was bleeding, not just her every muscle.
The lamp faded. There'd be no point in lighting it, there wasn't enough in her to turn it back on, it was fine, there was moonlight. It'd do.
She was up. Not on her feet, standing wasn't a thing, it would never be. Maybe ever again. No, it would happen.
She was using her hands and they were crushed and ripped simultaneously.
"I… will…"
She shut up. No, the pain shut her up. It was its own person, cruel evil, demanding attention all the time, but by Nature she'd try.
She elbowed her way forwards. Hardwood turning her enemy before making it to the base of the chair. She needed a breath. Just a quick one.
She waited until her eyes closed.
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Aphiwe sits on the bench, towel‑wrapped, surrounded by women in white. Every drop of sweat, every breath, every secret of her body is catalogued, tested, and stored.
"Do you need to pee?" Thato asked, towering over her with papers and scrolls, eyes locked to her child."
The lounge has become a laboratory, vials of color filling the air with strange scents, books and boxes rising from underground like ghosts of knowledge. Yet for Aphiwe, none of it matters. Not the samples, not the pain, not the endless procedures. Only her mother's stare—watchful, unyielding, and impossible to escape.
📖 Step into Chapter 4, where science and family collide, and a child becomes the center of a ritual that could change the fate of the Houses.